old crow’s newest studio album was released last friday, partially to commemorate their twentieth year as a group. the title is a reference to tennessee, the state they have called home since 2000. string bands were a dime a dozen when they first started busking in the streets, but ocms eventually started breaking away from the pack based on their strong songwriting and original material. that continues here for the most part, and their musical prowess has only gotten tighter over the years. instrumentally, this is as good an album as they have put out. lyrically, it doesn’t have a big hit like ‘wagon wheel’ or ‘sweet amarillo’, but the songs are serviceable and occasionally very good (‘old hickory’). my quibble is with the execution of the vocals or the format. on a few cuts they seem to try to emulate some of the bands that were influenced by their earlier work – namely avett brothers, mumford and sons, trampled by turtles, etc. – and as such possibly become a caricature of themselves. luckily this only applies to 2-3 cuts, and the rest is pretty good. the results might have been a function of their approach when they prepared to come into the studio.

recorded in the summer of 2016 shortly after playing ‘blonde on blonde’ at the country music hall of fame museum, they met in the fabled rca studios in nashville with dave cobb on the knobs. they had over two dozen songs as candidates, but cobb convinced them to not arrange, rehearse or practice any of the material before coming in. being twenty year road warriors, the ensemble playing is infused with the spirit of their high energy live performances. but maybe the arrangements and song structures could have used a little more marinating before the final tracks were laid down. much of the feel of the album is a raucous party atmosphere. we also get the first electric guitar track on an album since 2004 (dave rawlings and his telecaster on ‘wagon wheel’).

in ‘look away’, you will hear echoes of ‘dixie’, the old traditional song of the south. ketch secor wanted to get it up to speed with the current controversies of the civil war, and it is one of the more thoughtful pieces on the album. ‘old hickory’ is a fictional account of a local musical legend, and you can hear shades of dylan’s ‘you ain’t going nowhere’ in the chord structures.

other than my previously mentioned issues, i am having a hard time putting my finger on why i can’t give it more hearty endorsement. i haven’t been as enthusiastic about their work since willie watson left them in 2011. they lost one of their best vocalists, and he was a member that kept them more in the traditionalist vein. that being said, this a very decent outing for one of the best string bands out there.

 

 

it is hard to believe, but this is john prine’s first collection of new original songs in thirteen years. he has certainly been active with other projects (his collection of duets, ‘for better or worse’, for example), but selfishly i have been yearning for new material from the man whom i consider to be on my very short list of the best singer songwriters of my generation. dylan (another person on that list) once famously remarked that prine’s ‘stuff is pure proustian existentialism, midwestern minds trips to the nth degree’. at only ten songs and a little over thirty minutes long, i wish there was more. but what is currently being offered is definitely worth the wait. he is 71 now and has had two bouts of cancer in the last twenty years (squamous cell carcinoma in his neck in 1998, and lung cancer in 2013). as such, his voice is not like it was in the past. however, like dylan, the magic of his songs are in the lyrical constructions, and these ten songs will sound vaguely familiar to anyone who has been a fan of his work over the last fifty years. any vocal misses are easily smoothed out by the wonderful harmonies provided by brandi carlisle, amanda shires, and jason isbell, to name a few.

maybe his advancing age or health issues have informed his writing here, as there is plenty of material about death and dying and loneliness. but if you really think about it, he has always infused these themes into his best work since the beginning (think ‘sam stone’, ‘hello out there’, to name a couple). john is in many ways a people’s poet, utilizing country folk idioms as his palate for his simple but thought provoking lyrics, often embellished with a wry sense of humor. the last cut, ‘when i get to heaven’, is a partially spoken word song that allows him to imagine the list of things he will do when he gets inside of the pearly gates. of course he wants to see his mom and dad and brother and aunts, but then he gets to the chorus where he admits ‘i’m gonna have a cocktail, vodka and ginger ale, yeah i’m gonna smoke a cigarette that’s nine miles long’. even though i know he really wants that smoke (he had to quit due to his cancer), here’s hoping we have a few more albums out of him before he gets to have it. he is heading out on tour (alas, nowhere close to me), so add this album to your collection and go out and see the legend.